Sunday, June 5, 2011

Quotes of the Week

From the Light:“The ability to kill efficiently should not be a source of pride. And the fact that a small group of elites has the power to send thousands of people to fight, die, and kill, as well as cajole an entire society into tacit support, is a total aberration of humanity.”
Simon Black

“Needless to say, all anarchists should support outright and immediate abolition of the police. We’re talking about the enforcement arm of the state, after all. If you oppose the state monopoly, you must favor eliminating the state’s method of maintaining its monopoly – through the police. And indeed, if you distrust socialism, you should distrust law-enforcement socialism as much as anything, for this is the original sin that allows all other state depredations to follow. Also, when the state misallocates resources, it is not nearly so evil in itself as when it inevitably misallocates violence on a massive scale.”
Anthony Gregory

“Males value freedom over security; women, security over freedom. Men love venturing into the wild, whether in Silicon Valley or unexplored jungles, if any; women do not. Men are fiercely competitive; women, concerned with order and comity. Men are physical, enjoying, even needing, rough sports; women are not. To a man of my generation the country today is unbearably controlled, restricted, safe, and feminized.”
Fred Reed

“That Government is instituted for the benefit of the governed, there can be little doubt; but the interests of the Government (when once it becomes absolute and independent of the people) must be directly at variance with those of the governed. The interests of the one are common and equal rights: of the other, exclusive and invidious privileges."
William Hazlitt

“If advocates for the world's poor really want to do something that actually helps the world's poor, they should quit protesting sweatshops and start working to eliminate barriers to free trade and free immigration."
Art Carden

“We don't need to send the country into bankruptcy, in the name of the poor, by spending trillions of dollars on people who are not poor, and who could take care of themselves. The poor have been used as human shields behind which the expanding welfare state can advance. The goal is not to keep the poor from starving but to create dependency, because dependency translates into votes for politicians who play Santa Claus.”
Thomas Sowell

“Regardless of whether the debt ceiling is raised, the US government is not going to go out of business. Why does anyone think that the President, who does not obey the War Powers Act, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, US and international laws against torture, or any of the laws and procedures that guard civil liberty, is going to feel compelled to obey the debt ceiling?”
Paul Craig Roberts

“Politics is the method of the thief who doesn't want to face the fact that he is the bad guy. That he is backed up by 'laws and The State makes no difference in the foundation of his actions.”
Kent McManigal

“If mentally incapacitated troops are being drugged with dangerous, mind-altering drugs and deployed to battle against their will, how can we say that we have a volunteer army?”
Alliance for Human Research Protection

“Liberty lies in the essence of man, not in documents secretly drafted in the dark of night by the few. The free spirit of the people must awaken before any real freedom becomes evident, and in that awakening they must realize the great importance of the individual and of individual responsibility.”
Gary D. Barnett

"You will never understand bureaucracies until you understand that for bureaucrats procedure is everything and outcomes are nothing."
Thomas Sowell

“Each individual has an inalienable, inherent right of ownership of one’s own life, person, labor and justly-owned property, and pursuit of happiness, and the right to be free from the aggression against one’s life by others, including agents of the State. With the right to life and the right to sustain one’s life, each individual has a right to trade his labor with others for a compensation or good in return for such labor, within a voluntary and mutually-agreed-upon contract, as long as one is peaceful and does not interfere with any other individual’s equal right.”
Scott Lazarowitz

“Cops couldn’t get away with their thuggish activities if they weren’t aided and abetted by their fellow cops, by their commanders and chiefs and commissioners, by their mayors and city councils, by the local judicial system, and worst of all by clueless citizens who mindlessly call them ‘heroes’ and whitewash them with clichés like ‘one bad apple in a barrel of good cops’ and ‘putting their lives on the line every day.’"
Garry Reed

“What is wrong for your neighbor to do is also wrong for the government to do, because there is only one standard of morality. Slam the door on the face of anyone who says differently.”
Wendy McElroy

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From the Darkness:

“It would certainly be in our interest to see Iraq remain on its current path and become even more stable. As a member of the national security team, that would be my advice.”
General Martin Dempsey, The Emperor’s choice for chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, saying he’s willing to keep U.S. troops there past December.

“The conditions on the ground [in Afghanistan] need to dictate when we come home. We can’t have a political decision on a deadline. We can’t show the enemy our playbook.”
Sarah Palin [It certainly was a “political” decision to start the war in the first place.]

“Greenhouse gas legislation, either with a tax or with cap and trade – which is a more complicated way of getting at it but it has the advantage of politically sort of hiding the fact that you have a tax – but that’s what you’re trying to do.”
John Bryson, President Obama’s nominee to head the Commerce Department

“Abraham Lincoln, the president who ended slavery, and Barack Obama, the first black president of the United States, are peas in the same pod, both irredeemably stained by the hard fiscal decisions they had to make to save their nation.”
Andrew Leonard, Salon

"The U.S. military has never been at a loss in being told to find things to do. They've always had a full menu."
Defense Secretary Robert Gates

“America is, as the expression goes, putting ‘our money where our mouth is’ with respect to this part of the world - and will continue to do so.”
Defense Secretary Robert Gates [You always have plenty of “mouth” but there isn’t any “money” left.]

“These programs [increasing the combined U.S.-Australian naval presence in the region and expanding joint training with Singapore’s forces] are on track to grow and evolve further in the future, even in the face of new threats abroad and fiscal challenges at home, ensuring that that we will continue to meet our commitments as a 21st century Asia-Pacific nation - with appropriate forces, posture, and presence.”
Defense Secretary Robert Gates [Since when is the US an “Asia-Pacific nation?” Is Mr. Gates geographically challenged?]

“Making medical school free would relieve doctors of the burden of student debt and gradually shift the work force away from specialties and toward primary care. It would also attract college graduates who are discouraged from going to medical school by the costly tuition.”
Peter B. Bach and Robert Kocher, from a NY Times editorial

About Me

Several years ago I started writing as a hobby and I’ve had my columns published at Strike-the-Root.com, Lew Rockwell.com, Anti-War.com, MensNewsDaily.com, Novakeo.com, ActivistPost.com, InfoWars.com, and ThePriceofLiberty.org. I use my writing as a tool to encourage people to reject state dominion and to live as the free individuals God intended. Individual liberty is not compatible with state coercion, no matter the size of the institution nor the constitutional restrictions placed upon it. The goal of those liberated from statist inclinations and nationalism is a stateless society based on the principles of non-aggression, individual respect, self-ownership and common sense. This can only come about through individual-initiated education and spiritual reform. I hope my writing aids others in those pursuits.